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Tag: elections

  • Cybercriminals Pose a Greater Threat of Disruptive US Election Hacks Than Russia or China

    Cybercriminals Pose a Greater Threat of Disruptive US Election Hacks Than Russia or China

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    Russian, Chinese, and Iranian state-backed hackers have been active throughout the 2024 United States campaign season, compromising digital accounts associated with political campaigns, spreading disinformation, and probing election systems. But in a report from early October, the threat-sharing and coordination group known as the Election Infrastructure ISAC warned that cybercriminals like ransomware attackers pose a far greater risk of launching disruptive attacks than foreign espionage actors.

    While state-backed actors were emboldened following Russia’s meddling in the 2016 US presidential election, the report points out that they favor intelligence-gathering and influence operations rather than disruptive attacks, which would be viewed as direct hostility against the US government. Ideologically and financially motivated actors, on the other hand, generally aim to cause disruption with hacks like ransomware or DDoS attacks.

    The document was first obtained by the national security transparency nonprofit Property of the People and viewed by WIRED. The US Department of Homeland Security, which contributed to the report and distributed it, did not return WIRED’s requests for comment. The Center for Internet Security, which runs the Election Infrastructure ISAC, declined to comment.

    “Since the 2022 midterm elections, financially and ideologically motivated cyber criminals have targeted US state and local government entity networks that manage or support election processes,” the alert states. “In some cases, successful ransomware attacks and a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack on such infrastructure delayed election-related operations in the affected state or locality but did not compromise the integrity of voting processes … Nation-state-affiliated cyber actors have not attempted to disrupt US elections infrastructure, despite reconnaissance and occasionally acquiring access to non-voting infrastructure.”

    According to DHS statistics highlighted in the report, 95 percent of “cyber threats to elections” were unsuccessful attempts by unknown actors. Two percent were unsuccessful attempts by known actors, and 3 percent were successful attempts “to gain access or cause disruption.” The report emphasizes that threat intelligence sharing and collaboration between local, state, and federal authorities help prevent breaches and mitigate the fallout of successful attacks.

    In general, government-backed hackers may stoke geopolitical tension by conducting particularly aggressive digital espionage, but their activity isn’t inherently escalatory so long as they are abiding by espionage norms. Criminal hackers are bound by no such restrictions, though they can call too much attention to themselves if their attacks are too disruptive and risk a law enforcement crackdown.

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  • Microsoft Warns Foreign Disinformation Is Hitting the US Election From All Directions

    Microsoft Warns Foreign Disinformation Is Hitting the US Election From All Directions

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    As November 5 draws closer, the Microsoft Threat Analysis Center (MTAC) warned on Wednesday that malicious foreign influence operations launched by Russia, China, and Iran against the US presidential election are continuing to evolve and should not be ignored even though they have come to feel inevitable. In the group’s fifth report, researchers emphasize the range of ongoing activities as well as the inevitability that attackers will work to stoke doubts about the integrity of the election in its aftermath.

    In spite of escalating conflict in the Middle East, Microsoft says that Iran has been able to keep up its operations targeting the US election, particularly targeting the Trump campaign and attempting to foment anti-Israel sentiment. Russian actors, meanwhile, have been focused on targeting the Harris campaign with character attacks and AI-generated content, including deepfakes. And China has shifted its focus in recent weeks, researchers say, to target down-ballot Republican candidates as well as sitting members of Congress who promote policies adversarial to China or in conflict with its interests.

    Crucially, MTAC says it is all but certain that these actors will attempt to stoke division and mistrust in vote security on Election Day and in its immediate aftermath.

    “As MTAC observed during the 2020 presidential cycle, foreign adversaries will amplify claims of election rigging, voter fraud, or other election integrity issues to sow chaos among the US electorate and undermine international confidence in US political stability,” the researchers wrote in their report.

    As the 2024 campaign season enters its final phase, the researchers say that they expect to see AI-generated media continuing to show up in new campaigns, particularly because content can spread so rapidly in the charged period immediately around Election Day. The report also notes that Microsoft has detected Iranian actors probing election-related websites and media outlets, “suggesting preparations for more direct influence operations as Election Day nears.”

    Chinese actors focusing on US congressional races and other figures also indicates a fluency and far-reaching approach to deploying influence operations. China-backed groups have recently launched campaigns against US representative Barry Moore, and US senators Marsha Blackburn and Marco Rubio (who is not currently up for reelection), pushing corruption allegations and promoting opposing candidates.

    MTAC says that many influence campaigns from all of the actors fail to gain traction. But the efforts are still significant, because the narratives that do break through can have significant impact, and the activity in general contributes to the volume and intensity of false and misleading claims circulating in the information landscape surrounding the election.

    “History has shown that the ability of foreign actors to rapidly distribute deceptive content can significantly impact public perception and electoral outcomes,” MTAC general manager Clint Watts wrote in a blog post on Wednesday. “With a particular focus on the 48 hours before and after Election Day, voters, government institutions, candidates and parties must remain vigilant to deceptive and suspicious activity online.”

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  • Get Your VP Debate Bingo Card Right Here

    Get Your VP Debate Bingo Card Right Here

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    On Tuesday night, vice presidential nominees J.D. Vance and Tim Walz will debate one another for the first and only time ahead of the November presidential election.

    Before becoming an Ohio senator, Vance built his profile as a Silicon Valley venture capitalist and author of “Hillbilly Elegy,” a memoir detailing his life as a young adult from Middletown, Ohio. In California, Vance connected with tech investors like the conservative Peter Thiel who donated millions to his 2022 Senate campaign. Walz, a former congressperson and current governor of Minnesota, was not as high-profile of a pick as Vance, but the Kamala Harris campaign has leveraged his background as a former teacher, football coach, and veteran to appeal to rural America. Walz has inspired much of the Democrats’ election messaging, like calling the GOP “weird.”

    Going into Tuesday’s debate, former president Donald Trump and vice president Kamala Harris are neck and neck in the polls. A recent New York Times average of national polls showed Harris up three points in national polls, but neither candidate boasts a meaningful lead in battleground states like Georgia, Pennsylvania, and Michigan.

    Unlike the last ABC debate between former president Donald Trump and vice president Kamala Harris, the microphones will remain on for the duration of the debate. The candidates will have two minutes to answer questions, two minutes to respond to their opponents, and one minute for rebuttals.

    The debate is scheduled to be broadcast on CBS live at 9:00pm ET and is expected to run 90 minutes. Norah O’Donnell, CBS Evening News anchor and managing editor, and Margaret Brennan, Face the Nation moderator and chief foreign affairs correspondent, will moderate. The debate, which takes place in New York City, will air on the CBS News and will be simulcast on other networks including CNN, C-SPAN, Fox News, MSNBC, NBC, and PBS. It can be streamed online on CBS’s News’s YouTube channel, Paramount+, and C-SPAN’s website.

    Follow along with the WIRED Politics desk by downloading our Vance-Walz debate bingo card:

    A written bingo card with jokes pertaining to the 2024 election

    IMAGE: WIRED STAFF; GETTY IMAGES

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  • Watch Kamala Harris Take the WIRED Autocomplete Interview

    Watch Kamala Harris Take the WIRED Autocomplete Interview

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    In a wide-ranging WIRED Autocomplete Interview, Vice President Kamala Harris touched on everything from her debate with former president Donald Trump—which she found “quite enjoyable”—to her time as California’s attorney general to Taylor Swift’s endorsement. It’s a lively tour of Harris’ past, and a preview of her plans for the future.

    Harris sat with WIRED earlier this week for the interview, which asks guests to respond to some of the most-searched terms about themselves. In this case, the prompts hit on her policies around reproductive rights, gun ownership, marriage equality, and more. But Harris also talks about more personal details, like her relationship with her stepchildren and her deep ties to her college sorority.

    Most of all, Harris took the opportunity to highlight the differences between her perspective and Donald Trump’s. “His vision for our country is very grounded in the past,” she says, “and frankly an attempt to take us backward.” You can watch the full video above.

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  • US Senate Warns Big Tech to Act Fast Against Election Meddling

    US Senate Warns Big Tech to Act Fast Against Election Meddling

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    Andy Carvin, the managing editor and research director of the Digital Forensic Research Lab (DFRLab), tells WIRED that his organization, which conducts a vast amount of research into disinformation and other online harms, has been tracking Doppelganger for more than two years. The scope of the operation should surprise few, he says, given the fake news sites follow an obvious template, and that populating them with AI-generated text is simple.

    “Russian operations like Doppelganger are like throwing spaghetti at a wall,” he says. “They toss out as much as they can and see what sticks.”

    Meta, in a written statement on Tuesday, said it had banned RT’s parent company, Rossiya Segodnya, and “other related entities” globally across Instagram, Facebook, and Threads for engaging in what it called “foreign interference activity.” (“Meta is discrediting itself,” the Kremlin replied Tuesday, claiming the ban has endangered the company’s “prospects” for “normalizing” relations with Russia.)

    Testifying on Wednesday, Meta president of global affairs Nick Clegg stressed the industry-wide nature of the problem facing voters online. “People trying to interfere with elections rarely target a single platform,” he said, adding that Meta is, nevertheless, “confident” in its ability to protect the integrity of “not only this year’s elections in the United States, but elections everywhere.”

    Warner appeared less than fully convinced, noting the use of paid advertisements in recent malign influence campaigns. “I would have thought,” he said, “eight years later, we would be better at at least screening the advertisers.”

    He added that, seven months ago, over two dozen tech companies had signed the AI Elections Accord in Munich—an agreement to invest in research and the development of countermeasures against harmful AI. While some of the firms have been responsive, he said, others have ignored repeated inquiries by US lawmakers, many eager to hear how those investments played out.

    While talking up Google’s efforts to “identify problematic accounts, particularly around election ads,” Alphabet’s chief legal officer, Kent Walker, was halted mid-sentence. Citing conversations with the Treasury Department, Warner interrupted to say that he’d confirmed as recently as February that both Google and Meta have “repeatedly allowed Russian influence actors, including sanctioned entities, to use your ad tools.”

    The Virginia senator stressed that Congress needed to know specifically “how much content” relevant bad actors had paid to promote to US audiences this year. “And we’re going to need that [information] extraordinarily fast,” he added, referring as well to details of how many Americans specifically had seen the content. Walker replied to say that Google had taken down “something like 11,000 efforts by Russian-associated entities to post content on YouTube and the like.”

    Warner additionally urged the officials against viewing Election Day as if it were an end-zone. Of equal and great importance is the integrity of the news that reaches voters, he stressed, in the days and weeks that follow.

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  • Yes, You Can Now Bet on Elections in the US

    Yes, You Can Now Bet on Elections in the US

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    A federal judge has cleared the way for betting on election results in the US for the first time in the modern era, overturning a prohibition imposed on gambling companies by the Commodities Futures Trading Commission, a financial regulator.

    In November, the CFTC was sued in the District of Columbia by New York-based Kalshi, which operates a predictions market that allows users to bet on the outcome of various events, from the volume of recorded bird flu cases to the number of cars produced by Tesla. Kalshi filed a lawsuit seeking to overturn a CFTC decision preventing it from offering bets on whether the Democratic or Republican party would control the two chambers of Congress.

    On September 6, Judge Jia Cobb ruled in favor of Kalshi, overturning the CFTC prohibition. At a hearing on Thursday, the judge denied a motion for delay meant to buy the CFTC time to appeal, which means betting may now begin.

    The debate over whether betting on the elections should be allowed in the US runs back decades. At the moment, the practice is illegal under the laws of numerous US states, like Texas and Nevada, but not everywhere.

    The CFTC has so far refused to grant gambling platforms a license to offer odds on election results, amounting to a de facto ban. In May, the agency proposed new rules that would make election betting explicitly illegal, classifying it as a type of gaming—a practice over which it has some jurisdiction. The proposal garnered support among some Democrat senators—among them Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Jeffrey Merkley of Oregon—who in August cosigned an open letter endorsing the CFTC’s plan.

    Organizations that lobby against the legalization of election betting claim the practice would encourage meddling by malign actors. “The trust and confidence of American people in our election system is at a very low point. The last thing we need is for people to be incentivized to interfere with the election process,” says Dennis Kelleher, president and CEO of nonprofit Better Markets. “There can be no doubt, when there are hundreds of millions of dollars on the line, people are going to be incentivized to engage in conduct that interferes with the elections.”

    The CFTC did not respond to questions from WIRED, but in a previous statement, its chairman, Rostin Behnam, laid out the justification for the ban it had proposed. “Contracts involving political events ultimately commoditize and degrade the integrity of the uniquely American experience of participating in the democratic electoral process,” he said.

    But in its lawsuit, Kalshi argued that election-related event contracts—the type of betting instrument in question—are a valuable tool for businesses hoping to hedge against a political outcome that might be unfavorable to them. The company also argued that data produced by this type of betting activity can be used as a valuable alternative to traditional polling. “You get more truth out of these markets,” claims Tarek Mansour, cofounder of Kalshi. “They do a better job at aggregating the prevailing wisdom.”

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  • Here’s What Right-Wing Influencers Actually Talked About in Tenet Media Videos Allegedly Financed by Russia

    Here’s What Right-Wing Influencers Actually Talked About in Tenet Media Videos Allegedly Financed by Russia

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    In hundreds of videos since taken down by YouTube, right-wing influencers working for Tenet Media—a company the US Department of Justice alleges was financed and guided by a state-backed Russian news network—showed interest in a highly specific set of topics, according to a WIRED analysis.

    Using closed captioning of the videos we downloaded before the videos were removed, we’ve compiled lists of terms frequently mentioned in them, along with a searchable database:

    The content of these videos was described by prosecutors as “consistent” with Russia’s aims to sow political discord in the US. Among the areas covered: free speech, illegal immigrants, diversity in video games, supposed racism toward white people, and Elon Musk.

    While an indictment unsealed earlier this week does not name Tenet, WIRED and other outlets were able to identify it because prosecutors gave its motto as that of a business identified as “U.S. Company-1.” Prosecutors allege that two employees of the state-backed Russian network RT, Kostiantyn Kalashnikov and Elena Afanasyeva, who are charged with conspiracy to commit money laundering and to violate the Foreign Agents Registration Act, paid Tenet and its parent company $9.7 million to produce and distribute videos supporting Russian aims. The vast majority of that money allegedly went to Tenet’s network of popular influencers, which included Benny Johnson, Tim Pool, Dave Rubin, and Lauren Southern.

    The influencers—who have not responded to requests for comment (Johnson, Pool, Rubin, and fellow talents Tayler Hansen and Matt Christiansen issued statements denying awareness of the alleged Russian influence scheme and portraying themselves as its victims)—are not accused by the government of wrongdoing. Prosecutors say that right-wing personality Lauren Chen and her husband Liam Donovan, Canadian nationals who founded Tenet—the two, who have not been charged with any crime, go unnamed in the indictment, but are tied to the business through corporate records—were aware they were working with Russians and failed to register “as an agent of a foreign principal, as required by law.” The indictment alleges that the pair, who were not indicted, did not inform the influencers or other Tenet employees about the source of their funding.

    Nonetheless, Afanasyeva, using fake personae, “edited, posted, and directed the posting by [Tenet] of hundreds of videos,” the indictment says. The indictment does not identify specific videos as allegedly influenced by the RT employees, but prosecutors say they were intimately involved in Tenet’s editorial process: “While the views expressed in the videos are not uniform, the subject matter and content of the videos are often consistent with the Government of Russia’s interest in amplifying US domestic divisions in order to weaken US opposition to core Government of Russia interests, such as its ongoing war in Ukraine.”

    To determine what specifically the Russian government is alleged to have funded, WIRED downloaded the closed captioning transcripts from 405 longform videos posted on Tenet’s YouTube channel—you can access the file here—and used natural language processing to identify common themes. These 405 video transcripts represent nearly every longform video available on the channel. We were not able to analyze approximately 1600 YouTube shorts before the channel was removed from the site. We analyzed the data looking for the most frequently occurring two-, three-, and four-word phrases in each video, excluding words like “um” that don’t carry much meaning. (“Um” appears in the dataset 2,340 times.)

    This analysis does not show that in these videos the influencers were particularly fixated on the Ukraine war—the word “Ukraine” appears in the transcripts 67 times, about as often as “misinformation,” “Christianity,” and “Clinton.” It does show the influencers stressing highly divisive culture war topics in the videos, which carried titles like “Trans Widows Are A Thing And It’s Getting OUT OF HAND” and “Race Is Biological But Gender Isn’t???” The word “trans” appears 152 times, and “transgender” 98.

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  • At Last, Election Deniers Have an App of Their Own

    At Last, Election Deniers Have an App of Their Own

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    Users of the app are then presented with what looks like a typical social media feed of text, images, and videos. But instead of lime-green memes about Kamala, Instagram cooking videos, or “very demure” videos on TikTok, initial indications suggest the feed will be filled with livestreams of drop boxes in Wisconsin or reports of Wi-Fi-connected voting machines in Arizona.

    While the app isn’t really up and running yet, we’ve got a glimpse into its possible future thanks to test posts from Engelbrecht’s team that cover the wide gamut of conspiracies the group has been pushing.

    “It says I already voted by mail?” asks D from Loudoun County, Virginia, in a test post that popped up in my feed. “I just moved a few months ago and went to get my voter registration and address updated. They told me that I have already voted by mail—but I haven’t.”

    Meanwhile, JR in Kent County, Delaware, claimed in another test post that someone was having a bake sale “trying to get people to vote for certain candidates.” (There is a very clear sign on the cookie table with the prices; a quick reverse image search shows the image dates back to at least 2017.)

    Meg Denning, who works with True the Vote, has also posted, claiming: “​​All the machines went down and there was a wifi [sic] connection,” referring to a favorite conspiracy among election deniers that the internet itself has been used to conduct voter fraud on a mass scale.

    Though these are just test posts, the section of the app that allows users to report their own claims shows just how focused True the Vote is on promoting election conspiracies.

    The app also allows users to indicate their location, precinct number, and whether they are an election worker or poll watcher. It also helpfully offers you a predefined list of possible voting issues to report, including “ballot harvesting or trafficking” and “non-citizen voting,” which are concerns that groups like True the Vote have been baselessly promoting in recent months.

    If you believe your situation is life or death, the app even has a built-in emergency 24/7 hotline you can call to report your outrage. “Thank you for calling True the Vote,” the chirpy automated female voice responds after a couple of rings. “We appreciate your commitment to liberty.”

    No one picked up when I called.

    The automated voice did tell me to send an email or leave a voicemail before signing off: “Ever onward.”

    The Chatroom

    VoteAlert is probably not the best app to use to get election news you can trust. So where—aside from WIRED Politics of course—do you get your political fix? For me, it’s a combination of newsletters (Reliable Sources, Playbook, Garbage Day, etc.) and services like Election Line (which I highly recommend). I also spend a lot of time on X, which is still the best place to see what election conspiracy trends are taking hold.

    What about you? Do you still rely on mainstream media and social networks? Or are you on other platforms? Send your thoughts to [email protected] to let us know!

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  • We Hunted Hidden Police Signals at the DNC

    We Hunted Hidden Police Signals at the DNC

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    As thousands took to the streets during August’s Democratic National Convention in Chicago to protest Israel’s deadly assault on Gaza, a massive security operation was already underway. US Capitol Police, Secret Service, the Department of Homeland Security’s Homeland Security Investigations, sheriff’s deputies from nearby counties, and local officers from across the country had descended on Chicago and were all out in force, working to manage the crowds and ensure the event went off without any major disruptions.

    Amid the headlines and the largely peaceful protests, WIRED was looking for something less visible. We were investigating reports of cell site simulators (CSS), also known as IMSI catchers or Stingrays, the name of one of the technology’s earliest devices, developed by Harris Corporation. These controversial surveillance tools mimic cell towers to trick phones into connecting with them. Activists have long worried that the devices, which can capture sensitive data such as location, call metadata, and app traffic, might be used against political activists and protesters.

    Armed with a waist pack stuffed with two rooted Android phones and three Wi-Fi hot spots running CSS-detection software developed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital-rights nonprofit, we conducted a first-of-its-kind wireless survey of the signals around the DNC.

    WIRED attended protests across the city, events at the United Center (where the DNC took place), and social gatherings with lobbyists, political figures, and influencers. We spent time walking the perimeter along march routes and through planned protest sites before, during, and after these events.

    In the process we captured Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and cellular signals. We then analyzed those signals looking for specific hardware identifiers and other suspicious signs that could indicate the presence of a cell-site simulator. Ultimately, we did not find any evidence that cell-site simulators were deployed at the DNC. Nevertheless, when taken together, the hundreds of thousands of data points we accumulated in Chicago reveal how the invisible signals from our devices can create vulnerabilities for activists, police, and everyone in between. Our investigation revealed signals from as many as 297,337 devices, including as many as 2,568 associated with a major police body camera manufacturer, five associated with a law enforcement drone maker, and a massive array of consumer electronics like cameras, hearing aids, internet-of-things devices, and headphones.

    WIRED often observed the same devices appearing in different locations, revealing their operators’ patterns of movement. For example, a Chevrolet Wi-Fi hotspot, initially located in the law-enforcement-only parking lot of the United Center, was later found parked on a side street next to a downtown Chicago demonstration. A Wi-Fi signal from a Skydio police drone that hovered above a massive anti-war protest was detected again the next day above the Israeli consulate. And Axon police body cameras with identical hardware identifiers were detected at various protests occurring days apart.

    “Surveillance technologies leave traces that can be discovered in real time,” says Cooper Quintin, a senior staff technologist at the EFF. Regardless of the specific technologies WIRED detected, Quintin notes that the ability to identify police technology in real time is significant. “Many of our devices are beaconing in ways that make it possible to track us through wireless signals,” he says. While this makes it possible to track police, Quintin says, “this makes protesters similarly vulnerable to the same types of attacks.”

    The signals we collected are a byproduct of our extremely networked world and demonstrate a pervasive and unsettling reality: Military, law enforcement, and consumer devices constantly emit signals that can be intercepted and tracked by anyone with the right tools. In the context of high-stakes scenarios such as election events, gatherings of high-profile politicians and other officials, and large-scale protests, the findings have implications for law enforcement and protesters alike.

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  • Right-Wing Influencer Network Tenet Media Allegedly Spread Russian Disinformation

    Right-Wing Influencer Network Tenet Media Allegedly Spread Russian Disinformation

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    A Tennessee-based media network that produces shows for high-profile right-wing influencers including Benny Johnson and Tim Pool was largely funded by Russian state-backed news network RT, according to a federal indictment against two RT employees the United States Department of Justice unsealed on Wednesday. The DOJ claims the US company—which WIRED, along with other news outlets, was able to identify as Tenet Media but goes unnamed in the indictment—posted hundreds of videos on social media that pushed Kremlin-approved talking points.

    With the tagline “Fearless voices live here,” Tenet Media’s network includes online creators known for their right-wing politics, including Johnson, Pool, Dave Rubin, and Lauren Southern. In addition to the followings of the network’s individual creators, which collectively number in the millions, Tenet Media itself boasts more than 315,000 followers on YouTube, and thousands more across Facebook, Instagram, X, and TikTok.

    Johnson, Pool, Rubin, and Southern did not immediately respond to requests for comment; none are accused of wrongdoing. “We are disturbed by the allegations in today’s indictment,” Johnson wrote on X, referring to him and his lawyers, “which make clear that myself and other influencers were victims in this alleged scheme.” Pool also released a statement on X, saying in part that “Should these allegations prove true, I as well as the other personalities and commentators were deceived and are victims.” Rubin retweeted Pool’s post.

    Prosecutors say in the indictment that Tenet and its founders—who also go unnamed in the indictment, but are right-wing influencer Lauren Chen and her husband, Liam Donovan, according to corporate records—actively concealed the company’s links to Russia from the individual creators.

    Tenet allegedly received some $9.7 million from RT, according to the DOJ. Of that, $8.7 million went to the production companies of three unnamed commentators, the indictment claims. One, referred to as “Commentator-1”— the description appears to be of either Johnson or Rubin—was allegedly contracted for $400,000 per month for four weekly videos. The nearly $10 million Tenet Media allegedly received from RT “represents nearly 90%” of funds deposited in the company’s accounts, the DOJ claims.

    The Justice Department identifies Tenet Media only as “US Company-1,” but notes in the indictment that the company describes itself as a “network of heterodox commentators that focus on Western political and cultural issues.” That language is identical to the description on Tenet Media’s website.

    Tenet and Chen did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

    The Russian RT employees indicted by the US, Kostiantyn Kalashnikov and Elena Afanasyeva, allegedly worked with Tenet Media to produce hundreds of videos that support Russia’s aims. They are charged with conspiracy to violate the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) and conspiracy to commit money laundering for their alleged work with Tenet Media and associated activities.

    Posing as outside video editors, the pair were allegedly intimately involved in Tenet Media’s operations. Kalashnikov, for example, “monitored [Tenet Media’s] internal communications and edited content” published by the company, the indictment claims. Afanasyeva, who allegedly used the fake personas “Helena Shudra” and “Victoria Pesti” while working with Tenet Media, is said to have “edited, posted, and directed the posting” by Tenet Media and “provided day-to-day direction” to the company’s staff. Afanasyeva’s work with Tenet Media allegedly included instructing the company to post pro-Russian viewpoints, such as pushing a conspiracy theory that Ukraine and the US were responsible for a March terrorist attack at a music venue in Moscow.

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